Lee Noble, the designer and engineer who based sports activities automobile producer Noble, is making a daring return to the low-volume trade with a manufacturing model of the light-weight, 500bhp-plus track-focused take a look at mule he demonstrated 5 years in the past.
Named the Exile (as is Noble’s new enterprise), the road-legal mid-engined two-seat coupé combines a motorsport-bred chassis with supercar-quick acceleration.
Now powered by a 504bhp twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre Ford Ecoboost V6 (changing the mule’s Cadillac V6), the Exile ought to speed up from 0-60mph in 3.5sec and on to a high pace of 165mph, in line with its maker.
“The one adjustments we’ve made have been a dry sump for higher observe efficiency and bespoke mapping of the ECU,” stated Noble. “Sturdiness and simplicity have been key right here – and making it fairly fast, too.”
Drive is delivered to the Exile’s rear axle by way of a Graziano six-speed guide gearbox and a limited-slip differential to the identical spec because the Lamborghini Diablo’s.
“It’s bulletproof and it’ll shift gear as fast as I can transfer my arm,” claimed Noble.
Presently weighing simply 1100kg in prototype kind, the Exile shall be one of many lightest efficiency automobiles of its variety.
Its chassis includes a semi-monocoque centre part and a metal tubular perimeter body with a bonded-aluminium honeycomb pores and skin for higher torsional rigidity.
Its all-round double-wishbone suspension is managed by three-way adjustable dampers, whereas six-pot Wilwood calipers and ventilated brake discs function at every nook.
To keep away from the necessity for pricey kind approval, the Exile has no anti-lock braking, traction management or stability management.
The automobile’s rakish new physique (rendered by Autocar, primarily based on Noble’s drawings) is fashioned from a glass-reinforced plastic composite and is 4216mm lengthy and 1828mm vast, with a wheelbase of 2438mm.
The most recent prototype’s physique has been CNC-machined and is able to be fitted to the rolling chassis (pictured left) within the subsequent few weeks forward of preliminary whole-car testing.
Noble goals to promote 200 Exiles per yr at a unit value of “lower than £100,000”.
He’s holding talks with a number of buyers to fund the undertaking, which may as soon as once more contain manufacturing by Excessive Tech Automotive in South Africa, which part-built the profitable Noble M12.
